.\"
.\" SPDX-License-Identifier: BSD-2-Clause
.\"
.\" Copyright (c) 2002 Murray Stokely <murray@FreeBSD.org>
.\" All rights reserved.
.\"
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.\" modification, are permitted provided that the following conditions
.\" are met:
.\" 1. Redistributions of source code must retain the above copyright
.\"    notice, this list of conditions and the following disclaimer.
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.\"    notice, this list of conditions and the following disclaimer in the
.\"    documentation and/or other materials provided with the distribution.
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.\" ARE DISCLAIMED.  IN NO EVENT SHALL THE AUTHOR BE LIABLE
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.\" DAMAGES (INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, PROCUREMENT OF SUBSTITUTE GOODS
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.\" HOWEVER CAUSED AND ON ANY THEORY OF LIABILITY, WHETHER IN CONTRACT, STRICT
.\" LIABILITY, OR TORT (INCLUDING NEGLIGENCE OR OTHERWISE) ARISING IN ANY WAY
.\" OUT OF THE USE OF THIS SOFTWARE, EVEN IF ADVISED OF THE POSSIBILITY OF
.\" SUCH DAMAGE.
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.Dd October 13, 2025
.Dt RELEASE 7
.Os
.Sh NAME
.Nm release
.Nd "release building infrastructure"
.Sh DESCRIPTION
.Fx
provides a complete build environment suitable for users to make
full releases of the
.Fx
operating system.
All of the tools necessary to build a release are available from the
.Fx
source code repository in
.Pa src/release .
A complete release can be built with only a single command,
including the creation of ISO images suitable for burning to CD-ROM,
memory stick images, and a network install directory.
This command is aptly named
.Dq Li "make release" .
.Pp
For some users, it may be desirable to provide an absolutely clean
build environment, with no local modifications to the source tree or to
.Xr make.conf 5 ,
and with clean checkouts of specific versions of the doc, src, and ports
trees.
For this purpose, a script
.Pq Pa src/release/release.sh
is provided to automate these checkouts and then execute
.Dq Li "make release"
in a clean
.Xr chroot 8 .
.Pp
Before attempting to build a release, the user is expected to be
familiar with the contents of
.Xr build 7 ,
and should have experience upgrading systems from source.
.Pp
The release build process requires that
.Pa /usr/obj
be populated with the output of
.Dq Li "make buildworld"
and
.Dq Li "make buildkernel" .
This is necessary to provide the object files for the release or, when
using
.Pa release.sh ,
so that the object files for a complete system can be installed into a clean
.Xr chroot 8
environment.
.Pp
If the target release build is for a different architecture or machine type,
the
.Va TARGET
and
.Va TARGET_ARCH
variables must be used.
See the supported
.Fa release.conf
variables for more information.
.Pp
The release procedure on some architectures may also require that the
.Xr md 4
(memory disk) device driver be present in the kernel
.Pq either by being compiled in or available as a module .
.Pp
This document does not cover source code management, quality
assurance, or other aspects of the release engineering process.
.Sh CLEAN RELEASE GENERATION
Official releases of
.Fx
are produced in a clean environment to
ensure consistency between the versions of the src, ports, and doc trees
and to avoid contamination from the host system
.Po such as local patches, changes
to
.Xr make.conf 5 ,
etc.
.Pc .
This is accomplished using the wrapper script
.Pa src/release/release.sh .
.Pp
.Ic release.sh
.Op Fl c Ar release.conf
.Pp
.Ic release.sh
checks out the
.Li src/ ,
.Li ports/ ,
and
.Li doc/
trees to
.Va CHROOTDIR ,
then calls
.Dq Li "make buildworld"
and
.Dq Li "make installworld"
to generate a
.Xr chroot 8
environment.
Next,
.Dq Li "make release"
is run within the
.Xr chroot 8
environment and places the result in
.Pa $CHROOTDIR/R .
.Pp
The optional
.Fa release.conf
configuration file supports the following variables:
.Bl -tag -width Ev
.It Va CHROOTDIR
The directory within which the release will be built.
Defaults to
.Pa /scratch .
.It Va CHROOT_MAKEENV
Additional
.Xr make 1
arguments to pass through, which directly affect the
tuning of the build chroot.
.It Va NOGIT
Do not explicitly require the
.Xr git 1
port to be installed.
.It Va GITROOT
The
.Xr git 1
host used to check out the various trees.
Defaults to
.Pa https://git.FreeBSD.org .
.It Va SRCBRANCH
The
.Li src/
branch to use.
Defaults to
.Fl b Va main .
.It Va PORTBRANCH
The
.Li ports/
branch to use.
Defaults to
.Va head/@rHEAD .
.It Va TARGET
The target machine type for cross-building a release.
.It Va TARGET_ARCH
The target machine architecture for cross-building a release.
.Pp
For the supported list of
.Va TARGET
and
.Va TARGET_ARCH
combinations, consult the output of
.Dq make targets
as documented in
.Xr build 7 .
.It Va KERNEL
The target kernel configuration to use.
Defaults to
.Va GENERIC .
Multiple
.Va KERNEL
entries may be specified.
.It Va MAKE_CONF
The
.Xr make.conf 5
to use for the release build.
Defaults to
.Fa /dev/null
to prevent polluting the release with local system changes.
.It Va SRC_CONF
The
.Xr src.conf 5
to use for the release build.
Defaults to
.Fa /dev/null
to prevent polluting the release with local system changes.
.It Va MAKE_FLAGS
Additional flags to pass to
.Xr make 1 .
.It Va WORLD_FLAGS
Additional flags to pass to
.Xr make 1
during the
.Dq buildworld
phase.
Defaults to setting the number of
.Xr make 1
jobs
.Pq Ar -j
to the number of CPUs available on a SMP-capable system.
.It Va KERNEL_FLAGS
Additional flags to pass to
.Xr make 1
during the
.Dq buildkernel
phase.
Defaults to setting the number of
.Xr make 1
jobs
.Pq Ar -j
to half the number of CPUs available on a SMP-capable system.
.It Va NOPORTS
Set to a non-empty value to skip the
.Li ports/
tree checkout.
When set,
.Va NOPORTS
will prevent the
.Fa ports.txz
distribution package from being created.
.It Va WITH_DVD
Set to a non-empty value to include the
.Cm dvdrom
target.
.It Va WITH_COMPRESSED_IMAGES
Set to a non-empty value to compress the release images with
.Xr xz 1 .
The original
.Pq uncompressed
images are not removed.
.It Va XZ_THREADS Pq Vt int
Set to the number of threads
.Xr xz 1
should use when compressing images.
By default,
.Va XZ_THREADS
is set to
.Va 0 ,
which uses all available cores on the system.
.It Va VCSCMD
The command run to obtain the source trees.
Defaults to
.Qq Cm git clone Fl q .
.It Va CHROOTBUILD_SKIP
If defined, the
.Li buildworld ,
.Li installworld ,
and
.Li distribution
stages of the
.Xr chroot 8
build environment setup are skipped.
This is intended solely for cases where the
.Xr chroot 8
userland are provided by alternate means.
.It Va SRC_UPDATE_SKIP
Set to a non-empty value to prevent checkout or update of
.Fa /usr/src
within the
.Xr chroot 8 .
This is intended for use only when
.Fa /usr/src
is expected to exist by alternative means.
.It Va PORTS_UPDATE_SKIP
Set to a non-empty value to prevent checkout or update of
.Fa /usr/ports
within the
.Xr chroot 8 .
This is intended for use only when
.Fa /usr/ports
is expected to exist by alternative means.
.It Va PKGBASE
Include base system packages for use with
.Xr pkg 8
on the install media, instead of legacy tarball distribution sets.
.It Va PKG_CMD
A path to the
.Xr pkg 8
executable to use when installing packages in release images as a non-root user.
.It Va PKG_REPOS_DIR
An optional path to a directory containing
.Xr pkg 8
repository configuration files.
These configuration files will be used when installing packages in release
images as a non-root user.
.It Va PKG_REPO_NAME
The name of the repository configuration to use when installing packages in
release images as a non-root user.
.El
.Sh EMBEDDED BUILDS
The following
.Fa release.conf
variables are relevant only to release builds for embedded systems:
.Bl -tag -width Ev
.It Va EMBEDDEDBUILD
Set to a non-null value to enable functionality for embedded device
release builds.
.Pp
When set,
.Va WITH_DVD
is unset.
Additionally,
.Va EMBEDDED_TARGET
and
.Va EMBEDDED_TARGET_ARCH
must also be defined.
When the build environment is created,
.Fa release.sh
runs a separate build script located in an architecture-specific
directory in
.Pa src/release/${EMBEDDED_TARGET}/ .
.It Va EMBEDDEDPORTS
Set to the list of any ports that are required for the target device
in the format of
.Fa category/port .
.It Va EMBEDDED_TARGET
When set, its value is passed to
.Xr make 1
to set the
.Va TARGET
.Pq value of Cm uname Fl m
to cross build the target userland.
.It Va EMBEDDED_TARGET_ARCH
When set, its value is passed to
.Xr make 1
to set the
.Va TARGET_ARCH
.Pq value of Cm uname Fl p
to cross build the target userland.
.El
.Sh VIRTUAL MACHINE DISK IMAGES
The following
.Fa release.conf
variables are relevant only to virtual machine disk image builds:
.Bl -tag -width Ev
.It Va WITH_VMIMAGES
Set to a non-null value to build virtual machine disk images as part
of the release build.
.Va WITH_VMIMAGES
may also be specified as an environment variable passed to
.Xr make 1 .
.It Va WITH_COMPRESSED_VMIMAGES
Set to a non-null value to compress the virtual machine disk images with
.Xr xz 1
as part of the
.Cm install
.Xr make 1
target.
Note that compressing virtual machine disk images may take a very long
time on some systems.
.It Va VMBASE
Set to change the name of the resulting virtual machine disk image file.
The default value is
.Va vm .
.It Va VMSIZE
Set to change the size of the virtual machine disk capacity.
The default value is
.Va 20g .
See
.Xr makefs 8
for valid values.
.Pp
Virtual machine disk images are, by default, created as sparse images.
When
.Va WITH_COMPRESSED_VMIMAGES
is used, the resulting files compressed with
.Xr xz 1
compress to roughly the same size, regardless of the specified disk image
size.
.It Va VMFS
(Deprecated.)
Set to specify which of the filesystem(s) listed in
.Va VMFSLIST
is linked to the historical non-filesystem-labelled file name.
Valid values are
.Va ufs
and
.Va zfs .
The default value is
.Va ufs .
.It Va VMFSLIST
Set to specify the list of file system types to build images for.
Valid values are one or both of
.Va ufs
and
.Va zfs .
The default value is
.Va ufs zfs .
.It Va VMFORMATS
Set to the target virtual disk image format(s) to create.
By default, the
.Va vhdf , Va vmdk , Va qcow2 ,
and
.Va raw
formats are created.
See
.Xr mkimg 1
for valid format values.
.El
.Pp
For a list of supported
.Va VMFORMATS
values
.Pq including cloud hosting provider formats
along with a brief description, run:
.Bd -literal -offset indent
cd /usr/src
make -C release list-vmtargets
.Ed
.Sh CLOUD HOSTING MACHINE IMAGES
The
.Fx
release build tools support building virtual machine images for various
cloud hosting providers, each with their own specific configuration to
include support for each hosting provider by default.
.Pp
The following
.Xr make 1
environment variables are supported:
.Bl -tag -width Ev
.It Va CLOUDWARE
Set to a list of one or more cloud hosting providers, enclosed in quotes.
Requires
.Va WITH_CLOUDWARE
to also be set.
.It Va WITH_CLOUDWARE
Set to a non-empty value to enable building virtual machine images
for various cloud hosting providers.
Requires
.Va CLOUDWARE
to also be set.
.El
.Pp
Additionally, the
.Va CLOUDWARE
and
.Va WITH_CLOUDWARE
variables can be added to
.Pa release.conf ,
and used in conjunction with
.Pa release.sh .
.Pp
For a list of supported
.Va CLOUDWARE
values, run:
.Bd -literal -offset indent
cd /usr/src
make -C release list-cloudware
.Ed
.Sh OCI IMAGES
The
.Fx
release build tools have experimental support for building
Open Container Initiative (OCI) format container base images.
This is enabled using a
.Fa release.conf
variable:
.Bl -tag -width Ev
.It Va WITH_OCIIMAGES
Set to a non-null value to build OCI base images.
.El
.Sh MAKEFILE TARGETS
The release makefile
.Pq Pa src/release/Makefile
is fairly abstruse.
Most developers will only be concerned with the
.Cm release
and
.Cm install
targets.
.\" XXX: Some sort of introduction to this list?  All the others have one.
.Bl -tag -width ".Cm packagesystem"
.It Cm release
Meta-target to build all release media and distributions applicable to this
platform.
.It Cm install
Copy all produced release media to
.Pa ${DESTDIR} .
.It Cm cdrom
Builds installation CD-ROM images.
This may require the
.Xr md 4
(memory disk) device driver be present in the kernel
(either by being compiled in or available as a module).
This target produces files called
.Pa disc1.iso
and
.Pa bootonly.iso
as its output.
.It Cm dvdrom
Builds installation DVD-ROM images.
This may require the
.Xr md 4
(memory disk) device driver be present in the kernel
(either by being compiled in or available as a module).
This target produces the
.Pa dvd1.iso
file as its output.
.It Cm memstick
Builds an installation memory stick image named
.Pa memstick.img .
Not applicable on all platforms.
Requires that the
.Xr md 4
.Pq memory disk
device driver be present in the kernel
.Pq either by being compiled in or available as a module .
.It Cm mini-memstick
Similar to
.Cm memstick ,
with the exception that the installation distribution sets
are not included.
.It Cm ftp
Creates a directory named
.Pa ftp
containing the distribution files used in network installations
and suitable for upload to an FTP mirror.
.It Cm vm-image
Creates virtual machine disk images in various formats.
The
.Cm vm-image
target requires the
.Va WITH_VMIMAGES
.Xr make 1
environment variable to be set to a non-null value.
.It Cm vm-cloudware
Builds
.Fx
virtual machine images for various cloud hosting providers.
See
.Qq CLOUD HOSTING MACHINE IMAGES
for implementation details.
.It Cm list-cloudware
Displays the list of valid
.Va CLOUDWARE
values.
.It Cm list-vmtargets
Displays the list of valid
.Va VMFORMATS
and
.Va CLOUDWARE
values.
.El
.Pp
Major subtargets called by targets above:
.Bl -tag -width ".Cm packagesystem"
.It Cm packagesystem
Generates all the distribution archives
.Pq base, kernel, ports, doc
applicable on this platform.
.It Cm disc1
Builds a bootable installation system containing all the distribution files
packaged by the
.Cm packagesystem
target, and suitable for imaging by the
.Cm cdrom ,
.Cm dvdrom
and
.Cm memstick
targets.
.It Cm reldoc
Builds the release documentation.
This includes the release notes,
hardware guide, and installation instructions.
Other documentation, such as the Handbook,
is built during the
.Cm base.txz
target invoked by
.Cm packagesystem .
.El
.Sh ENVIRONMENT
Optional variables:
.Bl -tag -width ".Ev TARGET_ARCH"
.It Ev OSRELEASE
Optional base name for generated media images when invoking the
.Cm install
target
.Pq e.g., FreeBSD-12.1-RELEASE-amd64 .
Defaults to the output of
.Ic `uname -s`-`uname -r`-`uname -p`
within the chroot.
.It Ev WORLDDIR
Location of a directory containing the src tree.
By default, the directory
above the one containing the makefile
.Pq Pa src .
.It Ev PORTSDIR
Location of a directory containing the ports tree.
By default,
.Pa /usr/ports .
If it is unset or cannot be found, ports will not be included in the release.
.It Ev NOPORTS
If defined, the Ports Collection will be omitted from the release.
.It Ev NOSRC
If set, do not include system source code in the release.
.It Ev TARGET
The target hardware platform.
This is analogous to the
.Dq Nm uname Fl m
output.
This is necessary to cross-build some target architectures.
For example, cross-building for ARM64 machines requires
.Ev TARGET_ARCH Ns = Ns Li aarch64
and
.Ev TARGET Ns = Ns Li arm64 .
If not set,
.Ev TARGET
defaults to the current hardware platform.
.It Ev TARGET_ARCH
The target machine processor architecture.
This is analogous to the
.Dq Nm uname Fl p
output.
Set this to cross-build for a different architecture.
If not set,
.Ev TARGET_ARCH
defaults to the current machine architecture, unless
.Ev TARGET
is also set, in which case it defaults to the appropriate
value for that platform.
Typically, one only needs to set
.Ev TARGET .
.El
.Sh FILES
.Bl -tag -compact -width Pa
.It Pa /scratch
.It Pa /usr/doc/Makefile
.It Pa /usr/doc/share/mk/doc.project.mk
.It Pa /usr/ports/Mk/bsd.port.mk
.It Pa /usr/ports/Mk/bsd.sites.mk
.It Pa /usr/share/examples/etc/make.conf
.It Pa /usr/src/Makefile
.It Pa /usr/src/Makefile.inc1
.It Pa /usr/src/release/Makefile
.It Pa /usr/src/release/Makefile.vm
.It Pa /usr/src/release/release.sh
.It Pa /usr/src/release/release.conf.sample
.It Pa /usr/src/release/tools/*.conf
.It Pa /usr/src/release/tools/vmimage.subr
.El
.Sh EXAMPLES
The following sequence of commands can be used to build a
.Dq "-CURRENT snapshot":
.Bd -literal -offset indent
cd /usr
git clone -b main https://git.freebsd.org/src.git src
cd src
make buildworld buildkernel
cd release
make obj
make release
make install DESTDIR=/var/freebsd-snapshot
.Ed
.Pp
After running these commands, all produced distribution files (tarballs
for FTP, CD-ROM images, etc.) are available in the
.Pa /var/freebsd-snapshot
directory.
.Pp
The following sequence of commands can be used to build a
.Dq "-CURRENT snapshot"
in a clean environment, including ports and documentation:
.Bd -literal -offset indent
cd /usr/src/release
sh release.sh
.Ed
.Pp
Optionally, a configuration file can be used to customize the release build:
.Bd -literal -offset indent
cd /usr/src/release
sh release.sh -c $HOME/release.conf
.Ed
.Pp
Configuration files specific to various supported embedded systems, such as
the Raspberry Pi, exist in the directory corresponding to the
.Va TARGET
.Xr make 1
variable.
For example, to build an image for 64-bit Raspberry Pis:
.Bd -literal -offset indent
cd /usr/src/release
sh release.sh -c arm64/RPI.conf
.Ed
.Pp
After running these commands, all prepared release files are available in the
.Pa /scratch
directory.
The target directory can be changed by specifying the
.Va CHROOTDIR
variable in
.Li release.conf .
.Sh COMPATIBILITY
The reldoc target was removed in commit f61e92ca5a23, and
.Ev DOCDIR ,
.Ev DOCBRANCH ,
.Ev DOC_UPDATE_SKIP ,
and
.Ev NODOC
are therefore no longer supported.
.Sh SEE ALSO
.Xr cc 1 ,
.Xr git 1 Pq Pa ports/devel/git ,
.Xr install 1 ,
.Xr make 1 ,
.Xr mkimg 1 ,
.Xr uname 1 ,
.Xr md 4 ,
.Xr make.conf 5 ,
.Xr build 7 ,
.Xr ports 7 ,
.Xr chroot 8 ,
.Xr mtree 8 ,
.Xr sysctl 8
.Rs
.%T "FreeBSD Release Engineering"
.%U https://docs.freebsd.org/en/articles/freebsd-releng/
.Re
.Rs
.%T "FreeBSD Developers' Handbook"
.%U https://docs.freebsd.org/en/books/developers-handbook/
.Re
.Sh HISTORY
.Fx
1.x
used a manual checklist, compiled by
.An Rod Grimes ,
to produce a release.
Apart from being incomplete, the list put a lot of specific demands on
available file systems and was quite torturous to execute.
.Pp
As part of the
.Fx 2.0
release engineering effort, significant
effort was spent getting
.Pa src/release/Makefile
into a shape where it could at least automate most of the tediousness
of building a release in a sterile environment.
.Pp
For the
.Fx 9.0
release,
.Pa src/release/Makefile
was overhauled and the wrapper script
.Pa src/release/generate-release.sh
introduced to support the introduction of a new installer.
.Pp
For the
.Fx 9.2
release,
.Pa src/release/release.sh
was introduced to support per-build configuration files.
.Pa src/release/release.sh
is heavily based on the
.Pa src/release/generate-release.sh
script.
.Pp
At near 1000 revisions spread over multiple branches, the
.Xr git 1
log of
.Pa src/release/Makefile
contains a vivid historical record of some
of the hardships release engineers go through.
.Sh AUTHORS
.Pa src/release/Makefile
was originally written by
.An -nosplit
.An Rod Grimes ,
.An Jordan Hubbard ,
and
.An Poul-Henning Kamp .
.Pp
This manual page was originally written by
.An Murray Stokely Aq Mt murray@FreeBSD.org .
.Pp
It was updated by
.An Nathan Whitehorn Aq Mt nwhitehorn@FreeBSD.org
to include the
.Fa generate-release.sh
script used for the
.Fx 9.0
release cycle.
.Pp
It was later updated by
.An Glen Barber Aq Mt gjb@FreeBSD.org
to include the
.Fa release.sh
script used for the
.Fx 9.2
release cycle.
